iPad Training Basics for Classroom Teachers of Blind Students - Setting up a document exchange system and creating accessible materials for visually impaired & blind students using an iOS devices



iPad Buttons
Before we review all of the buttons, lets make sure we are all holding it the same way.
How to position the iPad -With the iPad in landscape view (horizontal) the home button (small indented circle) should be located to the right. VoiceOver should speak “Landscape home button to the right.


What does the home button do?

Home button: Is the small indented circle above the charger port
1x - If you hit the home button one time it will take you to the home page.
VoiceOver says “Home”
2x - If you hit the home button two times it will take you to the app switcher. The app switcher is similar to the task bar on a Windows computer. It allows you to change/switch between open apps
3x - If you hit the home button three times voice-over will turn on and off. Voice over is the screen reader and this is the program that makes the iPad talk to student.

Press and Hold: Siri comes up.

Rotation LOCK - This button can be set to function as Mute or Rotation Lock
This is the first button in the top left-hand corner.
Flip the switch to enable/disable rotation lock
This button keeps the iPad from changing views while working.
VoiceOver announces two views. Landscape aka horizontal and portrait aka vertical orientation.
While using VoiceOver the View should be locked. Changing rotation of the iPad.
While VoiceOver is reading will cause VoiceOver to skip around and read things it’s not supposed to.

Volume Buttons
The volume buttons are located on the right of the rotation lock button in the top left-hand corner.
The first button is volume down the second button is volume up.
Power Button- is located on the far top left panel.

Functions of the power buttons
Holding the power button in for 10 seconds they'll turn the iPad on and off.
Pressing the home button with the power button at the same time will take a screenshot.
Holding the home button and the power button down at the same time like 10 seconds will do warm reset. If things are frozen or not working correctly try a reboot.

Basic Gestures for Sighties iOS 7

Gestures by Function
Search- from anywhere on the screen drag down from top to bottom with one finger.
Notification Center: - with one finger touch the top of the screen and drag/swipe down with one finger.
- You should touch the time on the status bar and swipe down to view the notification center. Student does not use the notification center (yet) however this area gives you information about what's going on today.

Note - While looking for the search bar using a one finger swipe down, you may get the notification center. This means you touched two high on the screen. Make sure not to touch the time aka status bar aim just below.
Control Center - from the bottom of the screen swipe up with one finger.
Touch the dock and swipe up with one finger.
The control center gives you quick access to frequently used settings.
Buttons for Top left to Bottom right (toggle keys): airplane mode, wifi , Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, Lock Orientation aka Rotation lock, Brightness, (Music Player) track control, previous track, play, next track, volume, AirDop, Connect Bluetooth Devices, Flashlight, Clock, Calculator, Camera

Moving Pages- swipe right or left with one finger
Open or activate - single tap
Select: press and hold. A slider bar will appear. Drag the slider to select the text.
Editing : cut, copy, paste, select all, define, speak: Press and hold selected item/text until a pop-up appears.


MAIL – aka Email

Where is the Mail located?

The mail button is the first item located on the dock.
To open mail

Tap on the picture of the envelope one time.
VoiceOver speak Mail
You can also find mail by using the search bar and typing in the word mail.
You can also hold down the home key until it beeps and tell Siri to open mail

Worksheets can be sent via email as an attachment.

Attachments should use the extension txt

.txt = means text file. This means that any word-processing program can open this file.

.doc and .docx = these are both extensions for Microsoft Word. These documents can not be opened in iA Writer but can be opened in Pages.

How to Create a .txt document from a .doc or .docx file.
From within Microsoft Office or OpenOffice
Click File
Click Save As
Click Save as Type
Click .txt or Plain Text
Click ok/save

Files, Folders, Worksheets, Completed Work
iA Writer - This is the main app student uses to read, write, file and find her work.

iA Writer is linked to student Dropbox account.
Linked to Dropbox means that every time the document changes the cloud is updated. This means you don’t have to save the document when you’re done because it automatically updates.

DropBox: Accessing Student File Using the Internet

Web site www.dropbox.com
DropBox – here you can view, download, upload, or edit/annotate student work by visiting the website www.dropbox.com

click the sign in button
type in the user name
type in the password 7172781795 Yeah that’s my phone number don’t forget it
click enter
Here you will be able to view all of her student files.



Prizmo
Prizmo is an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) App

Why would some blind or visually impaired need Prizmo?

Text comes in many forms that accessible such as .doc, .docx, and .txt aka text files. Thus VoiceOver is able to read it.
Text also comes in many inaccessible formats such as .pdf, .jpeg, and ,bit aka picture files. Picture files can not be read by VoiceOver

Prizmo is that App that will scan .pdf files into text so that VoiceOver will read it. Prizmo is the App that will allow you to take pictures of worksheets to scan into text.


How does Prizmo work?

App Orientation
VoiceOver Description in button order from top left to bottom right (prizmo home page): settings, prizmo heading, edit button, regular text sample button image (double tap to open document), rename button, image extraction sample button image (double tap to open document), rename button, business card sample button image (double tap to open document), rename document, create new document button heading (make a new document from camera or existing pictures), quick capture button (quick capture and image without making a document), voice reader ( read text allow using installed voices).

Settings – The first button in the top left-hand corner
VoiceOver Description in button order from top left to bottom right (settings menu): settings heading, done button, use iCloud with button on/off (double tap to toggle button), general options button, OCR options button, export options button, accessibility button, help topics button, restore sample documents button, send feedback button, diagnostic & usage button, about Prizmo 3.0.2 button.



Settings Suggest for Blind and Visually Impaired
Use iCloud (switch button) On
General Options
Save Pictures to Album (switch button on/off) – All pictures taken with Prizmo are automatically saved to our Photos when the option is enabled.
Theme: Normal
OCR Options
Detection Text Orientation (switch button) On
Allows text orientation detection if original document is turned left, right, or upside down.
Yeah that’s right it doesn’t matter which direction the document is facing Prizmo will detect the correct orientation of the document.

Accessibility
Voice Reader – Changes the speaking speed of the Voice Reader in the Prizmo App. This has nothing to down with the speaking rate of VoiceOver.
If you can process faster flow of speech, the maximum speaking rate can be increased here.

The settings for student that are enabled are use icloud, detect text orientation and a speech rate of 200 percent

Note to Teachers : You do not need to touch the settings, I have already set them.

Edit - The second button in the top right-hand corner is the edit button.
Click the Edit Button allow you to make changes to a pre-existing document.
Click Edit, Select the document you want to edit, double tap to open.
Document Library

The next thing you will see is 3 example documents.
regular text sample, image extraction sample, business card sample

Note You can ignore the example documents or delete them for faster navigation.

Create a New Document -The next button is create a new document button, located at the bottom left of the screen. It looks like a piece of paper with a plus sign.

This will allow you to create a new document from your camera roll or take a picture
  • Click the create document button.
  • Click the text button.

Now you have 3 options take picture, photo album, and last picture taken.
  • If you're trying to scan a worksheet click take picture.
  • If you're trying to scan a photo you have already taken click photo album

Last picture taken is the option student will choose.
  • Student will take a screen shot of the document she needs to have scanned.
  • The reason last taken picture taken is selected because voice-over doesn't read picture

Scanning a Worksheet
Using the Quick Capture Button (quick capture and image without making a document)

The next button is called the capture image button It looks like a picture of a camera. VoiceOver speaks this button as quick capture button (quick capture and image without making a document)
  • Click the camera button
  • Turn the iPad into portrait view or vertically with the home button facing down.
  • Pick up the ipad and center the page so that all the text is visible
  • Click the take picture button. You will hear 3 beep tones as it identifies the picture.On the third beep a picture will be taken.
  • Next you will see the text processing and it will be displayed
  • Click the open in button located in the bottom right
  • Click regular text
  • Click open in iA Writer

In iA Writer
  • Click the file browser in the top left-hand corner: it looks like a picture of a file cabinet
  • Click the iA Writer back button in the top left of the pop up menu
  • Click document
  • Click the edit button
  • Touch the file called exported text
  • Click the name exported text and rename the file
  • Click move to at the bottom left of the pop up menu
  • Select the folder you would like to move the document to

Exporting a PDF file from Mail to Prizmo
PDF to Text
From the Mail App Locate the Attachment Tap to Download
  • Touch and hold the name or the .pdf attachment
  • Open in Prizmo (touch Prizmo): The document open in Prizmo and the document is filed in the Document Library
  • The PDF will open identifying each page in isolation.
  • Each page needs to be recognized aka scanned for text
  • Select a Page to Recognize/Scan
  • Here you can edit your image before scanning.
  • You could rotate the image but really there is no need since automatic page detection is enabled.You could Crop. You could cut out the pictures and just scan the text. I prefer to scan the entire page. Prizmo will identify and image as a block. It will list it as image and allow you to insert an image description.
  • Click Recognize
  • Now you can make changes or edit the document.
  • Each region is identified as numbered block.
  • Each region is automatically labeled as an image or text.
  • Here you can add, remove, and reorder the region blocks.
  • Reordering region blocks is an easy way to make sure to PDF file reads in the correct order.

Exporting you Document for Prizmo to another App
Click the Export Button located at the top of the screen. It looks like a piece of paper with an arrow point up.
Export Document Options
  • Read Text Aloud
  • Copy to Clipboard
  • Send by Mail
  • Send Message
  • Open in
  • Click Open in
  • Open in Option
  • Choose export format


Export Format Option
  • Prizmo Document: Opens in Prizmo
  • Text Document: Opens in Pages and iA Writer
  • PDF (Text): Is an accessible PDF and screen reader friendly PDF format
  • PDF (Image + Searchable Text) Is an accessible PDF and screen reader friendly PDF format

  • Click Text: Note is all the pages in the PDF file have not been recognized Prizmo will alert you.
  • Choose App you want to open the document in